


I'll dance with the wolves

by artemis69



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ballerina!Stiles, Dancer!Stiles, Everyone Is Alive, M/M, hale!pack, pining!derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:38:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9148954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemis69/pseuds/artemis69
Summary: Derek is used to life changing moments. They are his sad, sad specialty.But nothing in his life has ever prepared him for the vision of Stiles entering the vast dance studio clad only in pale, tight pants and old dance shoes.Stiles sends them all a look, rolls his eyes, then turns his back to them and starts stretching.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been dreaming of reading dancer!Stiles for a long time, and the wonderful **[smowkie](http://smowkie.tumblr.com/) ** prompted me to do it. So there it is! 
> 
> The title (obviously) comes frome the lyric of "Dance with the wolves": 
> 
>  
> 
> _"I'm not gonna cry_  
>  I'll stay in the woods  
> When my hearts aching, ill dance with the wolves  
> I'm not gonna try  
> To mess with my rules  
> When my hearts breaking, ill dance with the wolves" 
> 
>  
> 
> This was corrected by the adorable, precious **[notvirginawoolf](http://notvirginawoolf.tumblr.com/) ** ,who was brave enough to correct this during the holidays. She's the best. 
> 
> All the gifs comes from Sergei Polunin dancing on "take me to church". He's always been the perfect ballerina!Stiles to me, and this **[video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-tW0CkvdDI) ** is absolutly beautiful. All gifs have their sources under them!

**I'll dance with the wolves**  

[(source)](http://englishballetandtea.tumblr.com/post/111460004438/sergei-polunin-take-me-to-church)

[(source)](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/redfar/150253381763#_=_)

 

There was a black and white picture at his nana’s house, small and slightly crooked, lost in an old frame. Stiles was only a kid when his grandmother took it off the piano to show to him for the first time.    
The girl inside the picture was tiny, thin, with dark hair severely pulled back in a tight bun. Her face was turned to the side, her arms held high over her head in a graceful arch. She was wearing a tutu but the other details of her silhouette were blurred into yellow hues by the years.

Fascinated, Stiles sat near his nana and listened to stories of her youth in Russia. Of cold winters and women with warm blood and laughter. Of the peaceful studio with its dark wood and unending mirrors, and of the beautiful girls and boys that worked there every day to turn their bodies into art.  
His nana kept getting more pictures out of old books, clips of newspapers in an unknown language or beautifully lit shots of dancers on stage. In the photographs, she was only a young girl, frail and beautiful and flying with the grace of a bird.

That’s how it all started.

In his nana’s living room, with her standing tall and proud on her old, damaged feet. At seventy years, she still looked tiny and weak, but she spun him around the room without effort, her feet quick and light. Her white hair floated and her smile was the most beautiful thing Stiles had ever seen.  
On the sofa, his dad was clumsily trying to hum some classic melody, all eagerness and no rhythm. His mom laughed at them all and clapped, her enthusiasm and happiness intoxicating the room.

 

At five years old, Stiles bought his first ballet shoes. They were tiny, shiny and pink, and they didn’t make a sound when he walked shyly into Ms Muller’s dance studio. The wood in the room was bright and glossy, and light spilled all over the floor from gigantic windows. They were only seven other kids in the room, and all of them were girls.

Stiles didn’t care.

Ms Muller’s hands were strict and demanding, never treating them like the children they were, but her voice was warm and full of compliments. The weeks passed, and while Stiles started to tame his body into the foundations of grace, his brain stopped trying so hard to pull him in every direction at once.

In the studio, in the middle of the terse French words, the glittering music and the soft sounds of slippers on wood, Stiles discovered for the first time what peace felt like.  
 

At seven, he swirled on the playground, arms held high in the air like his nana’s pictures. A kid pushed him hard into the mud with a sneer before calling his other friends to laugh at him.  
From there on, Stiles decided to keep his love for ballet and his school life separate.  
   
Scott was the only point of intersection. From the first moment they met, Scott was sincerely interested. He came to many of Stiles’ practices, sitting quietly in a corner of the studio and looking at them with big, brilliant eyes. Ms Muller often tried to convince him to join but Scott always refused, blushing and babbling excuses about his asthma.  
The girls still got him to dance with them sometimes, dragging him along to join them in silly warming exercises. Scott once received Ms Muller’s congratulations on his fourth position and Scott had beamed at midair for three days straight.

  
   
Then, Stiles’ mom left them after months of terror and tears.  
And Stiles danced.  
   
He danced in the studio, in the dirt of the forest, between the suffocating walls of his room.  
He danced for hours, pushing, bending his body.  
He twirled fast enough to keep the world spinning, jumped high enough to keep breathing, learned to bow low enough to keep from breaking.  
At night, his feet bled, his knees screamed in constant pain and his body turned into one big hurt.

  
But his mind was blank and he was able to sleep.  
He didn’t dare ask for more.  
   
Slowly, slowly, he became good enough. His single class turned to several sessions a week, then to private tutorials. Patiently, with the finesse of great surgeon, Ms Muller shaped his body into something made for power and grace.

Outside of the studio, Stiles was still a bubbling mess, awkwardly inhabiting a body with hands too big and feet too damaged, always clumsy or distracted.  
But when he danced, Stiles was something else. Something peaceful and strong, focus and freedom in a body that moved exactly as he needed.  
 

He started competing, always far away from Beacon Hills, always under his real name. He waited on the stage, head held high, and smiled proudly when they called for him, even when the announcers butchered the pronunciation.  
Because this was the name that his nana used to call him when she taught him the five basic foot positions. This was the name his mom used to applaud while laughing. This was the name under which he learned to fly.  
And at thirteen, after years of tears and blood and sweat, Stiles now only had to raise his arms toward the sky and jump to take wings.  
   
On Ms Muller’s advice, he tried other dance styles. Discovered tango and its lazy, sticky sensuality, learned salsa and it’s fast, easy complicity. He bent his body into some surprising modern dance moves and even burned his hands on pole dance.  
He learned and brought all of it back to ballet and its bleeding, severe freedom.

He only started lacrosse in high school to support Scott. It seemed fair after years of Scott supporting him, years of homework done lying on the floor of the studio.  
Somehow, none of his body’s muscles translated into lacrosse. Stiles had built himself for control, precision and strength in movement and stillness, not for raw power and instinct. Still, he enjoyed Scott’s happiness, the simple peace of training and the easy camaraderie of belonging to a team.  
   
At fifteen, Stiles won his first national competition.  
Scott, his nana and his father made enough noise for Stiles to locate them from the stage and beam at them. His partner, Denna, a petite ballerina with stunning eyes, was sobbing against his shoulder, a flower bouquet clamped in her trembling hands. Everything was good.  
   
Then, at sixteen, Scott got bitten by a werewolf.

  
–  
   
Derek knows Stiles.    
   
It took them a lot to arrive at this point. Hours of fighting, pints of blood, months of terror, hundreds of movies and TV shows, dozens of late night talks and a lot of healing.  
Stiles is stunning and wicked smart and sharp. He is a stunning jigsaw of strange peculiarities and amazing qualities.

And they are close nowadays, Stiles and him, so close. Always gravitating toward one another, laughing, fighting, touching, flirting. They are a storm waiting to explode; electric, warm and inescapable.  
Sometimes Derek watches him for just a moment too long and forgets how to breathe correctly under the weight of it, happiness and frustration and anticipation choking him.  
   
So. Derek knows the most important things about Stiles.

 

It doesn’t mean that they are not still details about Stiles that wholly puzzle Derek.

Like the fact that Stiles never takes his shoes off.  
Derek has seen him curled on his sofa, sleepy and comfortable, his body lazily draped over Derek’s side. But when Derek dared suggest he take his shoes off, Stiles had immediately turned prickly and defensive. On beach days with the pack, Stiles had been the only one wearing his usual clothes – which disappointed Derek (and Erica) greatly. Despite the sand and the heat, he never took off his sneakers.

The other main mystery is Stiles’ scent. Not his personal one — because Stiles smells good and strong— but the other layer that clings to him some days. It’s a dull one, rusty, smelling of bruised muscle and drying blood and sweat.   
It’s a scent that scratches on Derek’s senses every time, irritating and worrying.

He tried to understand. He asked Scott at the very beginning, still blundering and involuntarily aggressive. Scott had snarled in his face and refused to answer.  
Later, he asked Lydia, Erica, Boyd, Jackson, Isaac. He tried Danny and Allison and Kira. None of them knew.  
For months, Derek had watched Stiles wince when he moved his neck, seen him sigh while raising his arms to drink his coffee, groan when raising up from the couch and massage his thighs.  
Derek had looked for bullies at school. Derek had looked for bullies in the street. Derek had looked for a violent girlfriend or boyfriend. Derek had even looked for some secret training in the wood with Scott.

He found nothing.

  
Until he met Stiles’ Nana.

  
–

The woman doesn’t even reach Derek’s chin and is frail enough to break in two if the wind turned too strong.

Derek still freezes, more impressed that he ever was by any feral alpha. He smiles and frantically tries to project on his face every ounce left of the “perfectly good boy” he used to be before his life turned to madness.

Stiles’ nana looks him up and down with severe blue eyes and Derek straightens up just a little bit more, fighting the instincts pushing him to show his neck or bow.

“You looks like a good man,” she finally says, nodding decidedly to herself. Derek puffs up under the praise. Stiles smiles at them, warm and soft.

She comes closer and her hand closes over Derek’s biceps, feeling it up like she would the legs of a prized horse. Derek stills, looking around with panicked eyes. Stiles jumps toward them, as protective as ever of Derek’s boundaries, but she has already let go.

“Good arms,” Nana adds seriously. She looks at his legs and, for one terrible second, Derek is sure that he’s going to be felt up by Stiles’ grandmother. But she only nods again before turning toward Stiles, who’s looking at her with crazy eyes. “You should dance with him sometimes. You would make a very beautiful pair.”

Stiles freezes suddenly. The whole pack turns to him, silent and attentive like bloodhounds on the trail.

“Dance?” Repeats Derek faintly.

Nana smirks. Stiles groans.  
   
–  
   
Derek is used to life changing moments.  
They are his sad, sad specialty.  
 

But nothing in his life has ever prepared him for the vision of Stiles entering the vast dance studio clad only in pale, tight pants and old dance shoes.  
Stiles sends them all a look, rolls his eyes, then turns his back to them and starts stretching.

Derek’s brain is completely frozen on the skin on display, the trail of moles splashed over Stiles’ spine and the curves of his thighs. He’s so beautiful that Derek feels almost guilty, as if observing something forbidden. He and the pack are sitting in the waiting room, separated from the studio by a full height window.

Behind the glass, Stiles is bending his body every way, raising on pointe slowly and breathing deeply. One hand lightly touching the barre, he raises his left leg to his head, effortless, his body a straight line of flowing muscles.  
Derek wonders if this is how religious people feel when they discovered their faith for the first time. 

Stiles’ whole body contracts while his leg goes down, ass, thigh, calf drawn in sharp relief in the sunny studio, the pants clinging and not even trying to hide anything. Derek groans out loud, unable to fight it.  
Nobody laughs at him. Lydia, Isaac Erica looks like they agree with the feeling to different degrees.  
 

The whole pack has their nose stuck to the glass, glued to it by curiosity.  
A group of ballerinas leave their own class in another studio, wiping away sweat with fluffy towels and chatting. They slow down when they reach the pack in the waiting area, their chatter petering out as the eye the strangers. They come closer after spotting Scott, greeting them all with smiles in their voices.

“I’ve been coming here with Stiles for thirteen years,” Scott explains as the students greet him with kisses to the cheek. Jackson and Isaac look on jealously as another pretty girl wearing not very much gives him a familiar hug. “I’ve even danced with them sometimes when they needed another guy for the portés.”

Allison’s eyes are hooked on Scott, her gaze dark. She’s either intrigued by the bad French or the idea of Scott wearing something similar to Stiles’ pants. Scott smiles at her slowly and raises his eyebrows.  
Their scent is not the subtlest, but Derek is not in any position to make any comment. Boyd has retreated three feet away from Derek as soon has Stiles entered the studio, rubbing his nose accusingly.

 

Music starts and Derek immediately and completely focuses his attention on Stiles. The music is not what Derek expected from classic ballet, slow and languorous. It’s far from the twinkly notes he had imagined these last days while dreaming of this exact moment.

Stiles is crumpled on the floor, lax, letting the instrumental part roll over him calmly. When the first lyrics resonate in the room, his body suddenly tenses like a live wire, pointed feet and shoulders his only contacts with the ground. He arches, hips swaying up, sharp and fluid, poisonous and sinuous as a snake. Derek is left with only a second to whine in his throat before Stiles is flipping himself in the air. 

No longer earth bound, the music accelerates with him, heavy and raw. Stiles runs and jumps high, his legs in perfect extension. He lands lightly on the ground and twirls, easy, liquid. One of his legs rises and his back arches, his body a perfect line suspended in time.

 

The next instant he is running again after a sharp turn of his shoulder, jumping, feet batting the air. There is something almost savage in his grace, wildness trying to escape from every pore of his perfect technique.

The music slows and he throws himself on the ground again, crawls, languid. The muscles in his arms and back bunch and roll and Derek’s heart stumbles, panics.

Stiles raises his head for a second to smile at them, exalted and playful, all Stiles.  
 

He rests his weight on one hand and rises up, biceps bulging, tendons corded, and his pointed feet still touching the ground. His body is an indecent curve, burning white in the sun. Then, with a small push on the point of his toe, he throws himself backwards, the flip powered by a single arm and lands on his feet.

He starts to spin immediately, fast, arms held close to him and one knee bent. On the last turn he hurls his body in the air, torso perfectly parallel to the ground. He touches down and jumps again on the next step, and the next. He soars higher every time, flying across the studio in different positions, alternating between rigid legs and curved spines.

 

Derek is utterly mesmerized. He stares at Stiles fighting against gravity with broken breaths, drinks in the smile on his face and the strength in every angle of his body. Derek didn’t know dancing could look like that.

Derek had always associated ballet with flimsiness but there is nothing meek in Stiles dancing, nothing harmless. He’s sharp but fluid, beautiful and violent, burning incandescently bright in the sun.

 

The music starts to fade and Stiles finally slows down, his movements getting heavier and heavier, his arms arching with syrupy slowness over his head.

Stiles stands in the silence for a second, breathing deeply, hair all over the place, before looking up at them.

 

Scott applauds immediately, excited. Lydia, Isaac and Boyd follow, looking perfectly stunned but impressed. Jackson is still staring, slack jawed, at the boy he’d teased for years for his clumsiness. Derek’s breath is fogging the glass, overwhelmed, and he keeps staring fixedly.

Erica is the one to get up and run into the studio. Stiles turns toward her, blinking, before beaming at something on her face. He raises his hands just in time, Erica flinging herself at him with complete abandon and too much speed.

Stiles absorbs the shock with a little step back but he doesn’t fail her, raising her straight up in the air above his head. She spreads her arms like a bird and he makes her turn slowly. Erica’s form is terrible, legs falling down clumsily, but she’s giggling like a kid. She catches his face between her hands and kisses his forehead while Stiles lowers her down with arms that never shake.

 

Derek finally convinces his body to break out its trance and he rushes inside. Erica moves away from Stiles and runs out of the studio, kissing Derek on the shoulder in passing. Derek doesn’t even stop, refusing to slow down until he swipes Stiles into his arms, crushing him against his chest.

Stiles jumps up immediately, lithe and strong, letting himself be carried for several steps with a delighted laugh. His knees are digging into Derek’s thighs, the pressure wonderful and grounding. One of his arms is wrapped around Derek’s shoulder, the other around his neck, fingers digging into Derek’s skin.

He smells familiar, like strained muscles and sweat, and he’s so perfect Derek aches with it.

Derek swirls to make Stiles’ feet cut the air like a princess’s dress in a fairytale. Stiles laughs again, rolls his body against Derek in a positively indecent wave to transfer all his weight on his arms and completely free his legs. With a defiant smirk, he pulls on his arms and contracts his lower body, his legs parallel to the ground for long seconds. Derek looks down at him, amazed, his view full of freckled skin, long legs and a pink mouth.

 

Then Derek kisses him because he’s physically unable to do anything else.

 

Things get hot and slick and wonderful for a second, Stiles curving his spine dramatically to roll closer and closer. Derek’s hands roam greedily over his lower back, the skin warm and damp over hard muscles. The angle fits perfectly in his palms and he wants to dig in and never let go.

One of Stiles’ hands suddenly slips and he loses his grip. They end up scrabbling frantically at each other for a second before sprawling inelegantly all over the floor in a mess of limbs.  
   
The pack is cheering from the other side of the glass, joined by the voices belonging to the group of ballerinas. An old, severe looking woman pauses at the door from the other studio and rolls her eyes at them.

 

Derek sighs. He can feel Stiles’ thrilled grin against the sensitive skin of his neck. Derek tightens his grip on him, the tip of his fingers brushing over the silky edges of his pants, and winds one of his legs against Stiles’ calf to keep him as close as possible. The sun is basking them both and the wood is warm against Derek’s back.

 

He nuzzles into Stiles’ skin and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed that! As always, I'm available on **[tumblr](http://artemis69.tumblr.com/tagged/sometimes-i-write-stuff) ** or here if you want to talk about this fic, sterek, gay boys or, well, anything! have a great day lovely, and thank you for taking the time to read that!


End file.
